What you should really know about the IRR

The Individual Ready Reserves: admit it, your initial opinion is, “That’s where I go when I’ve finished my Military Service Obligation, and wait out my time to my ETS date.” You transfer from Active Duty, Reserves, or Guard and then there’s no more commitment required from you. You don’t have to attend any Reserve drills; they’ll only call me up for WWIII, right? These are your thoughts; you know they are immediately brought to mind when you think of the IRR.

I willfully transferred to the IRR in May 2011. I did not care for my TPU (Reserve) unit and wanted to be able to more closely manage my own career. In 2007, I had been “involuntarily transferred for the purposes of deployment,” without my knowledge or approval. No one cared but me. I deployed to Iraq and when I came home, I wanted to be the one to decide what I was going to do with my service.

I served my first eight years on Active Duty, so contractually; I did not owe the Army any more time. I got out for a year; I joined the Reserves for the Troops to Teachers money. Got certified, got a job, got sent to Iraq. So the IRR has become my home since May 2011. Since I transferred to the IRR, I’ve attended and completed ALC, PCS’d, worked for 2 years on Active Duty, got promoted to Sergeant First Class/E7, and completed an 18-month deployment to Afghanistan. I was on Active Duty, without a break in service, from July 2011 though April 2015. I earned the Regular Army Good Conduct Medal, versus the Reserve version, and many other awards for my service.

I’d be very willing to bet that you did not know that you could do any of those things while in the IRR. You can attend NCOES and you can get promoted. Being in the IRR doesn’t stop you from getting promoted, unless you let it do so. When your promotion zone arrives, you complete the virtual board file, exactly like regular and TPU Reserve Army soldiers. You can spend quality time on Active Duty orders, earning retirement time for later on down the road. You can compete for and complete active duty tours from 30 days to 365 days. Tours are available at worldwide locations for all ranks and MOS specialties. You can work alongside Reserve, Guard and Active Duty service members, even all at the same time, like I did in Afghanistan.

What are you actually required to do while in the IRR? Well, you are required to contact information current with Army Human Resources Command whether in phone, regular mail or email. If those have changed, then you need to update the info with HRC. You must complete a readiness screening, only once per year, to make sure you’re fit to work whenever the Army needs you. If HRC sends you any correspondence in the mail or email, you have to reply to it (unless of course it says not to do that). Lastly, if you are asked to attend a Muster Duty, you have to go. These requirements hardly amount to anything that anyone could not comply with to continue your faithful service to your nation. The benefits greatly outweigh the costs.

Last but not least, at any time, you can transfer to an active Reserve unit from the IRR. You can go to a drilling unit and fulfill all those requirements, if you want. The IRR is a great component of the Army. You can do practically nothing, if you wish. You can continue in grand style to serve this awesome nation of ours. Your future can be up to you.